Constance Bumgarner Gee

Constance Bumgarner Gee (née Bumgarner) is an American scholar, memoirist, animal rights activist, and advocate of the medical use of cannabis. She was the founder and director of the Arts Policy and Administration Program at Ohio State University, and later an assistant professor at Brown University and tenured associate professor at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Higher Education: Marijuana at the Mansion, a 2012 memoir about her life as "first lady" of several American research universities. She critiques aspects of university leadership, discussing instances she perceives as inconsistencies between public image and internal practices. She graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, with a bachelor of arts degree in Fine Arts. She then received a master's degree in Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in New York City.

Career Bumgarner Gee was the founder and director of the Arts Policy and Administration Program at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio from 1993 to 1997.

Bumgarner Gee published a memoir titled Higher Education: Marijuana at the Mansion in 2012. In it, she recounts her times as the wife of university president Gordon Gee throughout their years at Ohio State, Brown and Vanderbilt universities.

Civic activities Bumgarner Gee served on the boards of the Columbus (OH) Humane Society, Trinity Repertory Company (Providence, RI), the Rhode Island State Arts Council and, in Nashville, on the boards of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and Actors Bridge Ensemble. In 2012, she explained to the Nashville-based newspaper The Tennessean as well as the television station WKRN-TV about why she supported its legalization for medical reasons. She testified to the Health Committee of the Tennessee House of Representatives in favor of the Safe Access to Medical Cannabis Act in April 2012. The bill, co-sponsored by state representative Jeanne Richardson and state senator Beverly Marrero and heard by state senator Glen Casada, was axed in the Tennessee Senate. As a result of pressures of public life and political fallout from the Journal article, the couple divorced in 2008. She now resides in Westport, Massachusetts where she is engaged in environmental and animal rights activism.

Selected scholarship Robin Anne Atwood, Robert W. Backoff, Constance Bumgarner Gee. Identifying Characteristics in Excellent Public and Private Nonprofit Arts Organizations: A Comparative Analysis of Three High Performers. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1995. 186 pages. Bryan Wayne Knicely, Constance Bumgarner Gee. A Strategic Management Assessment of The Palace Theatre and The Palace Cultural Arts Association Marion, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1996. 206 pages. Susan Pauline Genther, Constance Bumgarner Gee. An Investigation of The Impact of The Greater Columbus Arts Council's Artists-In-Schools Program on The Comprehensive Visual Arts Curriculum of Columbus Public Elementary Schools. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1996. 364 pages.